a year in my garden, part 1: welcome!

“You must have the most perfect garden”.

Uh, no.

You’ve heard about the cobbler’s children? Well they’ve got nothing on the gardener’s garden. One would think (at least I did) that, given my profession – and proximity to my own garden –  it would be the most manicured and well-maintained  in town. Oh, I had a plan and everything – I’d go out every day, for 10-20 minutes, and do some basic maintenance. This sounded like a “doable” goal,  not too overwhelming, and my garden would be an oasis of calm and lovely perfection.

Uh, no.

It turned out that the growing season in my garden magically coincided with my busy season at work – so by the time I got home, cleaned up, started dinner and caught up on everything I couldn’t get to while I was out working – well, you can guess how much time I spent in my garden.

And that is actually one of the reasons I started this blog. Rather than the incredible pleasure that gardening used to bring me, it started to feel like every other chore or task I had to tend to – rote, stressful and joyless. This made me sad and I vowed this year to make a change.

So I’d like to welcome you into my garden, month by month, over the course of a year. In this time I hope to share with you:

*some basic (really, I promise!) care and maintenance tips
*how to plan and plant for color and interest all year long (you can start here if you can’t wait…..)
*how to deal with deer (yeah, I have them – by the dozen)
*what’s in bloom right now
*some easy container planting ideas for every season

…..and much more.

I will also share wtih you the failures in my garden, because that happens – a lot.  I’m a bit (well, maybe more than “a bit”) of a control freak, and gardening for the past 15 years has taught me that I can plan, research and shop for the perfect plant, give it the most rich and lovely soil, tend to it with all the TLC in the world……………and it may still die. Or get eaten by a deer. Or get flattened in a summer rainstorm. For the first few years that I gardened, I found this immensely frustrating. The time! The money! “The books said” such-and-such plant will thrive in my zone!

But now I find it quite liberating to know that a plant may or may not survive and this has made me into a more confident gardener who will (occasionally) take a risk and (definitely) have more fun in the process.

Finally, I would love to know what YOU would be interested in learning more about – please post your questions, comments and garden experiences  with me – I look forward to learning from you too!

Related posts:

a year in my garden: january a year in my garden: september a year in my garden: may